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51. Another Week, Another SimDay

Written on Thursday 18 September 2003 at 21:46 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

This week's SimDay brings some nice and some old stuff. First of all there are links to two articles, one we've discussed earlier about Bustin' Out going online on the PS2, and the other one is a preview of The Sims 2. It's from Yahoo! this time, and you can find it right here. Under Get Cool Stuff at the official site, you can download the first set of The Sims Double Deluxe (to be released very soon). There will be 2 more sets coming in the next week. Those three together are all the extras of The Sims Double Deluxe that didn't come with earlier versions (so Sims Creator won't be a download, unfortunately). Finally there's info about a chat at 3pm PST today (which is 11pm in the UK, or midnight CET). It's about having a website and the hosting of fansites. The chat will be held in the chatroom at the official site that's been closed last week (but will be reopened temporarily). You can find the link to the chat at this page. Maxis General Manager Luc Barthelet will answer the submitted questions. That's all from the official site this week.

52. SimDay

Written on Thursday 4 September 2003 at 22:04 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

This SimDay comes with several things. So let's start: first of all, there's a Q&A about Makin' Magic (and Double Deluxe), which answers several questions asked on the BBS. It doesn't really reveal anything new, but for those interested here's the link. Talking about the BBS: Maxis has introduced the "Thread of the Day". Every day a topic will be picked by Maxis where their employees will be participating in. It's all at the official site's BBS. They also come with the news that the chat will no longer be on the official site, as the client will be unsupported by the manufacturer. They point to several other chatrooms on fansites, as well as the "Off-topic" board on the BBS. Finally, there are 2 links to articles. One we've already discussed earlier: the Developer's Diary for Bustin' Out. You can find it right here at GameSpot. The other article comes from Time Magazine, and is about The Sims 2. It's mainly about Will Wright "Reinventing The Sims". Nice to read, but it doesn't bring anything new about the game. Click here to read it.

53. Announcement: The Add-on Handler

Written on Wednesday 16 April 2003 at 14:00 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

Recently I've began working on a new utility for The Sims: The (Sims) Add-on Handler (Abbreviated: TAOH). Like several other tools out there, this will be able to install your downloaded files to The Sims by simply dragging the downloaded files to the window of TAOH - which shows any image you like. But unlike others, this tool will be a lot better! If you want to select the files using a conventional "Open" dialog box, that's possible too. For instance, you won't have to hassle to install roofs manually anymore - this will detect if a file is a skin or roof, and install it as you wish. The same goes for objects and houses. As if that isn't enough, it will also check if Skins are in just 256-colours. Skins that are bitmaps with more than 256 colours (or a palette bigger than that) tend to crash The Sims. The program will simply give you a warning if a file seems to be invalid. But wait! There's more... Read More!

54. New donation files

Written on Tuesday 1 April 2003 at 02:01 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

No, this is no joke. As usual, we've added donation files again. It's april now, and the files that were locked because they were the donation files for January have been unlocked and you can download them for free now. This month, we have a special download too: a "The Sims Zone Sidebar"! If you don't want to visit us to check the latest headlines, or to see if we have any new files, or just see a bunch of links to other fansites, then this is THE solution for you. This sidebar will install in your browser, and show up on the left of your browser window (like the search panel). Of course you can also hide it if you want. It will automatically update itself, and always download the latest headlines for you. You can visit other sites with the sidebar open like you're used to, and of course there are links to all the fansites in our database on it too! We might be adding even more in the future, and you won't even have to update anything.

As special for your Sims, Jen has designed a nice clothing set, The Sims Zone style. Your Sims can now wear clothes with The Sims Zone's logo on it. You can get that, and the sidebar, if you donate. More donation files will be added later this month.

55. Hot-linking to downloads

Written on Monday 10 February 2003 at 01:18 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

We've caught one site stealing a lot of our bandwidth by hot-linking to one of our downloads. Although it should be needless to say, this is NOT allowed. Such hot-linking (direct linking to a download at a different site, instead of pointing to the site) generates a lot of traffic to the sites linked to - in this case us. This specific download has cost us a lot of traffic in the past, but we have now taken measures to prevent files being downloaded from hot-linking sites. We are not mentioning the site in question yet, but we will do in case the link is not being removed, to warn webmasters of other fansites for this site. Also, you must always understand as webmaster that hot-linking is not allowed, especially if you don't get permission (which we never gave). Also, copying files to your own server and putting them on your site isn't allowed either, unless you have permission from the author or from this site. We'll be hunting for more sites linking like this regularly from now on, and taking measures against it. These sites are the reason sites like The Sims Zone get into financial trouble, and so that must be stopped.

56. SimDay: PS2 video

Written on Thursday 28 November 2002 at 23:39 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Besides the announcement of the announcement of the German site launch, there's a SimCity 4 Fansite Kit (15.5 Mb) to be downloaded. Having said that, there's one final more interesting thing: a QuickTime video of The Sims on PS2. You see the biggest special features of The Sims PS2, like creating your Sims, the 3D neighborhood, the story mode and 2-player challenges. Definately worth a look for those interested in this game (or perhaps even in The Sims 2, as some features might/will be seen in that game as well). You need a QuickTime plugin for it. To check out this 25 seconds video, go to this page. Last week's chat with SimCity 4 Producer Sean Decker about the Region Play feature was also quite a success, and the transcript can be found here. That's all, more next week.

57. Sim(City)Day

Written on Thursday 31 October 2002 at 20:35 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

This week there's quite a bit of SimCity news at the site of The Sims. One of those things is the chat transcript of last week's chat. Have a look at this question:

"'Do cars appear and disappear like in SC3, or do they actually go places?'
'One of my favorite things in SC4 is the traffic... it's not one for one with the population, but instead is a represantive model of the traffic patterns in your city you will actually see traffic jams occuring at different times of the day as people commute to and from work of course, if you're a kind and considerate mayor (which all of you are, I'm sure :) you'll help your Sims out by providing alternate means for them to get to work...or shopping...or....'"

To read the whole thing, visit this page. The other thing from SimCity.com is that there's a new fansite section along with a fansite pack. Now I can't find the fansite pack while browsing at the site (is that typical for Maxis?), but the list of fansites is there... it's not a real big list though. It can and should be found on this page.

The most interesting thing though, is the announcement of a patch for Unleashed. Let's hope it doesn't take them as long as the Hot Date patch, especially for 'international' users. The fixes are pretty nice though. You shouldn't be getting any flooding under objects anymore, Sims should keep their bought clothes, they should be able to watch TV sitting again, and they shouldn't be making themselves dizzy by spinning around a lot anymore. Also, some memory leaks are supposed to be fixed. What bugs we get in return isn't mentioned, but the full list of fixes is at this page. That's all for this week, more in one week.

58. Simday Report: Magazine feature

Written on Thursday 16 May 2002 at 20:31 by ChEeTaH - 2 comments.

Not a real big SimDay this time. All there's to be discussed is a feature in the Computer Games magazine. "Simply Monumental - The Sims, The Phenomenon, The Future" is what we can read on the cover of the latest issue, which shows Mount Sims - Mount Rushmore with Sim-faces. A few articles inside this cover deal with the upcoming titles The Sims Online and SimCity 4, the community (and fansites), the games Maxis made in the past, something about speaking Simlish and an interesting read about who is playing the best-selling game ever: The Sims. Besides that, there's an interview with Will Wright, of which a part can be read at Mall of The Sims (for free). Basically that's all for this SimDay, which didn't really add anything for those not being able to buy the latest issue of Computer Games.

SimDays are getting quiet again, so it seems. Over a year ago Andy wrote a series of three articles at TheSimsFusion (which is now this site) about "What happened to SimDay". Those articles can still be found in the editorials archive. Remember that these editorials were written even before House Party was released.

59. That's Life 2 coming

Written on Wednesday 3 April 2002 at 23:24 by ChEeTaH - 2 comments.

18 months after the first edition of That's Life, an unofficial expansion pack for The Sims, a second edition has been announced by the german X-Media. That's Life 1 was just a collection of files that you could download for free from several fansites. That's Life 2 will be set up the same way. The first version was found useless by the buyers, and a waste of their money. The interface was a pain, and so installing the files didn't work as easy as expected. That's Life 2 will cost approximately 15 Euros. I doubt if it'll really be worth that amount of money, while everything's available for free too...

60. KillerSims went offline... for now

Written on Saturday 23 March 2002 at 21:23 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

As I reported yesterday, KillerSims is having major traffic trouble. They've now put the site offline until a solution for the traffic problems is found. An earlier solution (limiting bandwidth per user) resulted in overall poor performance of the site, so they're thinking of something else now. We wish them good luck in finding a solution, and hope they'll be back soon as one of the best fansites on the net.